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Stella Grinstead Center loses funding

Wed, 09/06/2017 - 3:38pmadmin1

The Board at the Stella Grinstead Senior Center (Cameron Nutrition) received some disturbing news recently. The Northwest Missouri Area Agency on Aging did not accept our annual bid for funding the cost of meals to our clients. These meals are prepared in our facility for the Seniors in the Cameron area.

Although they didn’t give us a reason for the rejection, after talking to the Administrators from several other centers, we discovered that our bid for meals was higher than theirs and most likely the cause of our refusal.

Anticipating that we would be given the opportunity to rebid, we prepared a new bid 25% lower and forwarded it to them. However, the Area Agency informed us that they would not be accepting any rebids. Therefore the Cameron Nutrition Center, the Maryville Center, and the Bartlett Center in St. Joseph, are all on their own to fund services for clients in our community. That is about a $78,000 hit on Cameron’s budget.

One option we have is to get a Senior Tax Levy approved for Clinton county to help with Senior services. All the other counties in Northwest Missouri have this levy in place. With Cameron located at the corner of three counties, we do get a small portion of Dekalb’s levy since we Home Deliver meals north of Eighth street. But it is very small.

We face a twofold problem in trying to pass this levy in that the other Clinton county Senior Center, in Plattsburg, is not interested because their contract for 2018 was accepted. Secondly, the cost of putting the issue on the ballot (which could be from $3,500 to $10,000) would devastate our budget.

Another alternative would be a local tax in the Cameron School or Ambulance District (similar to the band tax levy) which would support the local Center.

Our intent is to make the public aware of our immediate situation, coming up at the end of September, when the Stella Grinstead Center will be without funding and could be forced to close our doors.

The bottom line is, WE NEED HELP!

Our Board believes our Center provides a vital service to the community so any help or suggestions would be very helpful.